Best of the Best of 2021
Every year, after we’ve run all our individual “Best of” lists, we ask each reviewer to choose their ONE favourite book of the year from their list. We’re an eclectic bunch when it comes to our reading habits, so this is an eclectic list – hopefully with something for everyone!
Alexandra
Battle Royal by Lucy Parker
It was surprisingly easy to pick a favorite this year, I just enjoyed this book so much. There’s something about the way Parker develops chemistry and witty dialogue between her characters, managing to show them as both enemies and friends/lovers by turns. It gets me every time!
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent retailer
Caroline
Not Here To Be Liked by Michelle Quach
An eminently qualified young woman running for high school newspaper editor loses to the last-minute candidacy of a newbie male jock, prompting our heroine and the entire school to confront systemic misogyny and what feminism really means. It’s nuanced, compelling, important, and well worth an adult read. This book is my top new release of 2021.
Buy it at Amazon, Audible or your local independent retailer
Caz
King’s Man by Sally Malcolm
Okay, I know I always say that I’m rubbish at choosing and that choosing just ONE title from my Best of List is akin to torture, but this year, the choice was even harder than usual. I had two very different books on my short-list, and trying to compare them – one historical set in 1780s England, one mystery/romance/tense family drama set in modern day Missouri – was less like trying to choose between apples and oranges than it was like trying to choose between apples and a giraffe!
So I decided to enact a tried and trusted rigorous scientific method for choosing. I tossed a coin.
In King’s Man, author Sally Malcolm creates longing and sexual tension so intense it leaps off the page, and the way she’s seamlessly woven together this emotionally powerful love story with a tense and exciting plot and a wonderfully (and obviously very well researched) rich historical background is nothing short of masterful. Heart-breaking, uplifting and utterly captivating, King’s Man is a compelling read and easily one of the finest historical romances I’ve read over the past few years.
Buy it at: Amazon
Dabney
Walk on the Wilder Side by Serena Bell
For the second year in a row, my favorite romance is a smart, independently published contemporary: Walk on the Wilder Side by the lovely Serena Bell. (Last year, I chose Juliana Keyes’ sports romp Bench Player.) As I wrote in my DIK review:
Bell is one of my favorite contemporary romance writers in no small part because she can take tried and true tropes and make them feel fresh, funny, and real… Walk on the Wilder Side is a steamy, sweet love story with depth. The sex scenes are plentiful and smokin’ hot AND deepen the connection between the leads. Plus it made me laugh more than once. All the Wilder books are a very good time, but this one, thus far, is my favorite.
Buy it at Amazon or your local independent retailer
Dolly
Just Not That Into Billionaires by Annika Martin
When I reviewed it earlier this year, I said it was charming and fun and sexy, and I stand by that opinion. It’s the story we all need in this pandemic. It’s the lighthearted feeling we all deserve.
Buy it at: Amazon or your local independent retailer
Em
The Paris Apartment by Kelly Bowen
I inhaled it over a twenty-four hour period. The setting, the time jumps, the female principal characters, the story – IT’S ALL FANTASTIC. Friends, I cried at the end. I LOVED IT SO HARD. If you’ve dug your heels in like me and said NO MORE WOMEN’S FICTION FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I beg you to make an exception and read The Paris Apartment. It’s Bowen’s best book.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent retailer
Jessica
A Nun for the Viking Warrior by Lucy Morris
I purchased this book because someone shared it as a joke in a reading group on Facebook and I found the blurb interesting. Now I’m in love with Viking romances. Gentle giants are my favorite and Jorund is one of the best: he was so sweet to Aimee the entire story. And this was packed with so much action I had trouble putting it down.
Buy it at Amazon
LaVerne
Blackberry Beach by Irene Hannon
With its two charming romances, a lovely small-town setting near the ocean, gentle inspirational messages, and well-drawn characters, Blackberry Beach is a wonderful gem. Given the fast pace and uncertainty of life, I love the quiet interlude this book offers. Enjoy!
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent retailer
Lisa
Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong
This second part of Gong’s retelling of Romeo and Juliet provides the most satisfying conclusion to a YA series I’ve read since Mackenzi Lee’s Gentlemen’s Guide series. A perfect novel.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent retailer
Maggie
Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson. It is the Autumn of 1943, to survive the Holocaust, Antonina Mazina, a young Jewish woman, poses as the wife of Nico Gerardi, a young man who was studying for the priesthood until circumstances forced him to leave the seminary and run his family’s farm.Their love story, set against a backdrop of terror and hardship, is a gorgeous, haunting, lyrical tale that you will remember long after you have read the last page.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent retailer
Maria Rose
Make it Sweet by Kristen Callihan
Choosing a favorite book of the year is always difficult but from the moment I read Make It Sweet, I knew it was a contender, and my love for this book has only grown in the interim. The author has taken two characters from different walks of life, Lucian an ex-hockey player and Emma an actress, and had them meet at a career crossroads for them both. Secluded at a gorgeous California estate, they are reluctantly drawn to each other, their time together giving them the courage to face the world again and the knowledge that they’ve found something special if they’re willing to take a risk. Make It Sweet doesn’t shy away from the hard realities of life but softens the edges by giving Lucian and Emma a sensual and sexy romance and the reader a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
Buy it at Amazon, Audible or your local independent retailer
Rachel
The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun
I was particularly impressed by this as it’s Cochrun’s debut. The Charm Offensive is relentlessly charming, sweet and hopeful. Dev and Charlie are deeply flawed but intensely loving people who are confused about what they want, and sadly used not having their needs met. I loved their story, it’s super romantic and beautifully written.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent retailer
So… those are OUR favourites. If you’ve read any of them, what did you think? And what are YOUR favourite books of the past year?
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I’ve tried really hard to get my Top Three down to just one. I’ve managed to get down to two and have given up!
So, my favourites are Subtle Blood by KJ Charles and Relative Justice by Gregory Ashe.
Subtle Blood is the perfect ending to the Will Darling trilogy. Through clever plotting, and lots of shenanigans, the MCs are able to achieve a HEA that is plausible for their time.
Relative Justice is the first book of the third series featuring Hazard and Somerset and is stunningly good. I’m really looking forward to Book 3 which is released next week!
Domestic Animals is great but – ouch. (So no change there…)
My favorite book of 2021 was The Dating Experiment by Briar Prescott It’s a M/M romance where the main characters start falling for each other via anonymous texting then find out they know each other in real life (where they have an antagonistic relationship). Briar Prescott hasn’t written a lot of books but I just can’t recommend her enough!
Another one I need to bump up the never-ending TBR! I do have it, it’s just… not enough hours in the day!
It’s the second of the series (3 books so far) but can be read as a standalone. It’s my favorite of the three. I also highly recommend her first 2 books (Project Hero and Rare). However, I know the feeling of a too large TBR!
That sounds really good! I’ll have to check it out.
My vote this year is for Isn’t It Bromantic by Lyssa Kay Adams. AAR has consistently given the Bromance series Bs, but I have enjoyed them all and really like this marriage of convenience plot. I also generally like that the whole series is fairly light in tone and takes a loving look at the romance genre. I would agree with several reviewers that each book has little things that could be better, but I always get a laugh out of the guys’ book club and how they breakdown romance novels together to help each other. Maybe the series fulfills a fantasy of having men think romance reading/acting like a romance hero is helpful?
I adored King’s Man and it is in my top 5 for 2021. The Charm Offensive was a DNF for me as was Battle Royal. It seems I’m just not a fan of reality show-based storylines. Which makes sense since I don’t watch reality tv. Go figure! I’m kind of interested in the Chloe Gong books because I’ve heard good things about them, but I was, in my teens, a big Shakespeare fan, and there have been so many Romeo and Juliet retellings, I’m afraid there is no way it will live up to the hype. Lisa, how closely does she hew to Shakespeare vs. diverge and forge her own path?
I’ll definitely look into some of the others and hope to find one or two good ones. Thanks so much for the recommendations!
I don’t like reality TV either, but both those books worked for me – the audio of The Charm Offensive, in particular, is excellent.
I only read one 2021 release that I recorded with 4 stars (and none with 5): The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob by Pippa Grant.
It was absolute murder for me to choose between Not Here To Be Liked and Float Plan. Like, coin flip levels of tie.
Hah – snap. As you can see, I did actually do the coin toss!
Caz, we know the other one was a Gregory Ashe book, so you just need to tell us which one! :-)
Hee – you know me so well! Relative Justice.
Having read both because I’m #TeamCaroline, I think you made the right choice. Float Plan had subtle emotional flow, but Not Here to Be Liked had intelligence & humour, which is so satisfying to read.
What put me just over the top was the incredible way NHTBL provoked me to think in ways that, while I loved Float Plan, I didn’t have to.
Also I did not know I have a team (even if it’s of one!) and this is the best thing that happened to me today.
I think that’s the best thing about AAR, there are many reviewers so you can find someone whose tastes are similar to your own. It’s like a getting a book recommendation from a good friend.
Thank you for that. Someday I’m going to write a post about how many and how varied the reviewers are and have been here at AAR. I know of at least 50 over the years! And I’m pretty sure that’s a significant undercount.
My favorite book of 2021 was After Dark with the Duke by Julie Anne Long.
I loved King’s Man and the way the author laid out some very thorny questions about freedoms that are still very much at issue today. How far do we bend the rules to secure our freedoms before bending the rules starts to crumble the foundations of those freedoms. And it looks at a part of history we aren’t taught, namely the plight of loyalist during and after the Revolutionary War. It was one of only two unqualified A grades I gave for 2021 books.
The other, and my pick for my very favorite book of 2021, is Madison Square Murders by C.S.Poe. I read this in print and listened on audio, and it was a 5 star read both ways. I chose it as the best because the main character is so unique and the writing and plotting are near perfect. I love a good police procedural, and this one is so well done. Add to that the start of a slow burn romance, and this checks all the boxes.
My very favorite book of 2021 was SAINT by Sierra Simone. It’s a second-chance m/m romance between two former lovers, one who is about to become a monk. Both men seek the balance between erotic love and spiritual solace and ask themselves if such a thing is possible within the confines of Catholic doctrine. Highly recommended, but I would read PRIEST and SINNER first because the MCs of the three books are brothers and there’s a lot of family history there.